Palmetto Regional

Palmetto Regional

This was it. After six weeks of brainstorming, designing, and building a robot for ULTIMATE ASCENT, we were finally getting the chance to compete in the 2013 Palmetto Regional, a first week FIRST Robotics Competition Tournament.

The Palmetto Regional was big. With 65 teams, it was the largest regional of the year.

When we arrived on the first day of the regional, we had a functional robot that we could drive and shoot consistently. The team was out early on the field practicing and by lunchtime, we were able to squeeze in three practice matches. During these, we calibrated our autonomous and potentiometer, making a lot of  progress becoming even more ready to compete by the end of the day.

Friday began the qualification rounds. In our first match, we were off to a great start, scoring a few Frisbees into the 3-point goal and earning 10 points by climbing up to the first bar. Despite missing during autonomous, our alliance ended up winning the match. After competing, we returned to our pit and continued our calibration.

Improving our robot throughout the day, we ended Saturday by scoring 128 points, the second highest score of the qualification rounds. Eventually, we were selected to be on one of the alliances in the elimination matches with M’Aiken Magic (Team 1102) and Team Spork (Team 3196). Although our robot played two very strong rounds, our alliance was eliminated in the quarterfinals.

Back in Raleigh, we reviewed video footage of our matches to identify our strengths and areas where we could improve during our next competition at the Dorton Arena in Raleigh. Trillian is very solid, but with a few small adjustments, we hope it will be one of the top robots at the NC Regional.  Overall, Palmetto was a huge success.

Climber

Early on in the first week of Ultimate Ascent, we decided that we wanted both a Frisbee shooter and pyramid climber. But how would we do it? Our climber design transitioned through various designs before we assembled this ten point climber.